Inside the plane…

"Where did they dig you up?" Erik asks Logan

Logan responds, "You're gonna find this hard to believe…but you sent me. You and Charles. From the future.

Um, what? Definitely wasn't expecting that. Erik thinks. If that's really true, the world is even more messed up than he thought.

Much like the car ride, the plane ride proceeds in silence, until Erik can take it no longer. He has to know how and more importantly why Charles can no longer gaze into the minds of others "How did you lose them?" he asks Charles.

Charles responds bluntly, "The treatment for my spine affects my DNA."

"You sacrificed your powers so you could walk?!" How could he do that Erik thinks. Give up what makes him special. With everything that Erik has been through himself, he cannot imagine being with out his power over metal. Since his life took a turn for the worst when he entered Auschwitz, his power has been the one constant he could rely on. He'd rather die than be without it. How could Charles feel any differently?

"I sacrificed my powers so I could sleep. What do you know about it." Charles adds

Erik is quick to answer, "I've lost my fair share." And he had. He'd lost his mother, his daughter, his wife, he may even have lost the chance to know his own son.

Unperturbed Charles responds, "Dry your eyes, Erik. It doesn't justify what you've done."

"You have no idea what I've done." Erik replies. If Charles knew everything, he'd hate him even more than he already does. Erik thinks sadly.

Charles answers, "I know you took the things that meant the most to me."

"Well maybe you should have fought harder for them." Did he really just say that? Why is he doing this to Charles, to his friend. He should follow his own advice. He should've fought harder to protect his family, maybe then he would never have set out on the path he is on now. Maybe then he would still be with Magda, Anya would still be alive, and maybe she'd have a little brother.

"If you want a fight Erik, I will give you a fight!" Charles says explosively rising from his seat to confront Erik.

"Sit down!" Wolverine shouts.

"Let him come." Erik says as Charles seizes him by the front of his shirt.

"You abandoned me! You took her away and you abandoned me!" Charles continues yelling, close to tears. Each word cuts Erik like a knife although he refuses to show it.

"Angel. Azazel. Emma. Banshee. Mutant brothers and sisters, all dead!" Erik answers back. Growing angrier and angrier. He can feel the plane collapsing and plummeting under his rage, but he can't seem to calm himself, and though he is trying desperately to blame Charles for the deaths of all his fellow mutants, who he truly blames is himself, yet for some reason he keeps trying to tear Charles down as he adds, "Countless others experimented on, butchered!"

"Erik!" He hears Hank's desperate voice again from the cockpit, but he is still unable to stop himself. He has been locked up alone for the past 10 years with all of these emotions bottled up inside him and no chance of a release before now, so he continues his rant, "Where were you, Charles?! We were supposed to protect them! Where were you when your own people needed you?! Hiding! You and Hank! Pretending to be something you're not!"

"ERIK!" Another more desperate shout from Hank pierces the air.

"You abandoned us ALL!" With that final statement Erik finds he has nothing left to say, and he is able to reign in his emotions, causing the plane to level out and began ascending once more. But his initial reprieve upon completing his outburst is short lived because as Charles pushes past him toward the cockpit he feels more guilty than ever. Not only that, but thinking over his own words he realizes how much of a hypocrite he is, accusing Charles of abandoning his mutant family, when he abandoned his own wife and quite possibly his unborn son.

"So you were always an asshole." Erik hears Logan's judgmental voice from behind him.

"I take it we're best buddies in the future" Erik retorts. He's really starting to dislike this guy, knowledge of the future or not.

"I spent a lot of years trying to bring you down. Bub." Logan replies.

"How does that work out for you?" Erik inquires.

"You're like me. You're a survivor. . .. Do you want to pick that shit up." Logan huffs out.

Erik just gives him another are you kidding me look, but bends down and begins to pick up everything anyway.

"Ya know, you've got issues man. I hope this time around things turn out better for you. I really do. Maybe meeting Pete about ten years earlier than you did in the former timeline will turn you back into a decent man." Logan says to Erik.

At those words, Erik almost drops everything he had just picked up off the ground, "Wh-" Erik clears his throat "why should my character have anything to do with that boy?" He asks Logan. Although he had come to believe that Logan was truly from the future, he didn't expect him to know any personal details about his own life. There was no way he could know what Erik suspected himself, could he?

Logan raises an eyebrow, "You don't know? I guess it's possible that you wouldn't, but no. I think you do know. Maybe you didn't know before, but seeing how you behaved around the kid, there's no doubt in my mind that you know who he is to you… I never knew Pete all that well in the future. Kid was pretty closed off by the time I met him, but he was a good man. Met him back in '95. He didn't really look much different than he does now, guess that has something to do with his mutation, but he sure was a lot less excitable and his attire wasn't quite so flashy. The Pietro I knew seemed to be carrying a great weight on his shoulders though. He didn't say much about his family, but eventually he let slip who his father was. At the time it didn't really mean much to me. You hadn't gained much fame yet, and we'd never crossed paths up to that point, so I didn't give the kid twenty questions. It seems like he had some pretty heavy animosity toward you though. I guess when your father is absent for twenty some years of your life and then deems his 'brotherhood' more important than getting to know his only son, you're bound to be bitter."

Erik didn't know how to respond to that. He tried at first to appear aloof. "I-I don't know what you're talking about, or what you think you know, but you don't know anything about me at all."

"Yea sure I don't 'Magneto'." Logan replies sarcastically. "When I met him, Pete said—and I'm not paraphrasin' here—'his father was a metal-movin' maniac of a mutant with extreme rage issues and a grin like a shark.' I'm sure there are a lot of people in the world who fit that description. Let me give you a piece of advice, once we put end to all this shit, you better get your priorities straight, or you'll have another person to add to that list of mutants you seem to think Charles failed."

Some time later…

After Logan's unexpected rant, he finally explained that his consciousness had been sent back in time to prevent a war against mutants and help Charles and him stop Raven from killing Trask, which apparently triggered the chain of events that would lead to the devastation of the planet. Although the knowledge that Erik was right and humans would turn on mutant-kind angered him to no end, he had other things on the forefront of his mind….He couldn't do anything right now with the knowledge that he was almost certainly a father again, but he could try to reconcile with Charles and make up for his previous behavior by beginning to mend at least some of the bridges he's burned.

Erik approaches Charles, places a chessboard in front of him, and sits down in the adjacent seat. "Fancy a game? It's been a while," he says.

"I'm not in the mood for games, thank you." Charles replies.

Erik takes a glass and pours himself a drink whiskey. "I haven't had a real sip in ten years." He takes a swig of his drink savoring the taste of the liquid as it burns down his throat and hoping it can take away some of the pain he is feeling. "I didn't kill the president."

Looking skeptical, Charles replies, "The bullet curved, Erik."

"Because I was trying to save him." Erik replied "They took me out before I could."

"Why would you try to save him?" Charles asks.

"Because he was one of us." And he was a great man, Erik thinks. Maybe they should have sent that burly fellow back to '63 to save Kennedy, instead of to here and now, but apparently that was never an option, as Logan said it was nearly impossible for him to come back this far.

Charles looks surprise at this pronouncement and says, "You must think me so foolish. You always said they would come after us."

"I never imagined they'd use Raven's DNA to do it." Erik responds. He never imagined humans would do something so cruel as turn the power of mutants against themselves.

"When did you last see her?" Charles asks

"The day I left Dallas." Erik replies. Another day of my life marked with failure.

Charles: "And how was she?"

Erik: "Strong, driven, loyal."

Appearing a little embarrassed, Charles asks again, "How…how was she?"

Not knowing quite how to respond, Erik takes a moment before saying, "She was…we were…I could see why she meant so much to you. You should be proud of her, Charles. She's out there fighting for our cause." …Doing what I should've been doing for the past ten years.

"You're cause?!" Charles says and Erik can see he's growing angry again, "The girl I raised, she was not capable of killing."

Erik responds, "You didn't raise her, you grew up with her. She couldn't stay a little girl forever, that's why she left." Erik thinks to himself: No Charles didn't raise Raven, and I didn't raise Peter. I didn't even know about Peter though…

"She left because you got inside her head" Charles accuses Erik.

"That's not my power. She made a choice." Erik says.

"But now we know where that choice leads, don't we? She's going to murder Trask, they're going to capture her and then they're going to wipe us out."

Erik feels his heart drop further into a chasm of guilt at Charles' pessimistic statement. The Charles he first met would have had faith in their ability to change history, but not anymore. Erik replies, "Not if we get to her first. Not if we change history tomorrow. I'm sorry, Charles. For what happened, I truly am." Erik's heart takes another step into despair as he sees tears once more arise in Charles eyes before Charles wipes them away, finishes his drink looking down at the chess set, and says, "It's been a while since I've played."

Erik replies, "I'll go easy on you. Might finally be a fair fight."

Charles looks up at Erik and says, "You have the first move."

Not even raising a hand, Erik moves his first piece forward and the game begins.

END FLASHBACK